Gambling on the new Bond

Changing the star and tone is risky, but Bond buffs expect a winner.

Jim Cavanaugh read his first James Bond novel at age 8. He saw “Dr. No,” the first Bond movie, when he was 13. For years he has subscribed to a James Bond magazine published in the U.K.

Over four decades he has dutifully seen every new Bond movie … even when, in his opinion, a way-too-old Roger Moore turned Ian Fleming’s secret agent into a fat joke.

But now Cavanaugh, the 57-year-old owner of Clint’s Books in midtown, is pumped up.

The source of his excitement is “Casino Royale,” the 21st “official” Bond film and the first to star Brit actor Daniel Craig, who takes over the role most recently inhabited by the ultra-suave Pierce Brosnan. It opens Friday, and Cavanaugh and other Bond-heads sense big changes.

“A friend in Hollywood who’s already seen it says ‘Casino Royale’ has hardly any gimmicks,” Cavanaugh said recently. “It’s a straightforward espionage movie, much closer to the Ian Fleming novels than anything we’ve seen in years.

“I’m really excited about that. But I don’t know if the public will go for it.”

That uncertainty has Hollywood holding its breath. Every time a different actor tackles the role of 007 there’s a getting-acquainted period while the fans gauge how the new guy stacks up against past Bonds — especially Sean Connery. Connery’s heady melding of thug and sophisticate left a legacy that all subsequent 007s have struggled to live up to.

Early in the filming of this latest Bond epic the rumor mills ran overtime. The largely unknown Craig (“The Road to Perdition,” “Layer Cake,” “Munich”), it was claimed, couldn’t drive a stick shift and was a wuss who lost teeth in a fight scene (all untrue, the filmmakers have said). Internet pundits moaned that he was all wrong for the role.

But “Casino Royale” has more to worry about than just a new leading man. EON productions, owner of the Bond franchise, has upped the ante by jettisoning much of the high-tech CGI effects that fans expect.

“Everything will be done the old-fashioned way by real stunt men,” said Lee Pfeiffer, co-author of The Essential Bond. “This is a bold thing they’re doing. In fact, ‘Casino Royale’ is the biggest risk in the franchise’s history.”

The new film takes Bond back to his roots by showing his first major assignment after receiving the elite 007 (“licensed to kill”) designation. Unlike the slick, unruffled Bonds of the past, Craig’s agent is sometimes unsure of himself. He makes mistakes. He hasn’t yet built the tough emotional carapace that will make the mature Bond such an efficient and guilt-free killer.

The producers even brought in Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis (“Million Dollar Baby,” “Crash”) to give the script a final polish that would emphasize the story’s relationships.

Relationships … in a Bond movie?

It could hardly be more different from 2002’s “Die Another Day,” in which Brosnan’s Bond bedded Halle Berry, drove an invisible car and had a climactic shootout in a palace literally made of ice. The film was seriously over the top, but it earned more than $400 million at the global box office, becoming the biggest Bond film ever.

So why change the formula?

“Taking risks is part of this job,” said Barbara Broccoli, producer of the Bond movies. “We were thrilled with the success of ‘Die Another Day,’ but when we sat down to figure out our next move, we decided that with the current world situation we needed to make a film that was a bit more realistic.”

Broccoli said that when Fleming wrote Casino Royale in 1953 he was about to get married and may have viewed James Bond as an alter ego who could do things that were now off-limits in Fleming’s personal life.

“I think Fleming was very conscious that he was going to have to give up his lifestyle and he was in mourning for it,” she said. “A lot of that permeated the book. To become a Double-0, Bond realizes he has to become a lone warrior. He isn’t able to really trust anyone, and that means he can never marry and have children. He’ll put himself on the line, but not his wife, not his child.”

There’s an air of tragedy about the character that no movie until now has examined, Broccoli said. Bond was orphaned at 12, went to boarding schools, was taken under the wing of a friend of his father who recruited him into the service precisely because he had no attachments.

“I don’t think Bond enjoys killing,” Broccoli said. “He questions it. He’s affected by it. And Daniel Craig has done an extraordinary job of opening up this character and showing his humanity.”

Throwing a changeup at Bond fans isn’t a new story, according to David Morefield, former editor of ianfleming .org. “In 1967 ‘You Only Live Twice’ was a hugely successful Bond film that accented over-the-top action and gadgetry, yet the producers followed it up in 1969 with ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,’ a much more personal, down-to-earth and pretty much gadget-less film that many Bond purists consider one of the best in the series.

“Ten years later Roger Moore’s ‘Moonraker’ took things about as far as they could go and sent James Bond to outer space. In terms of box office, it was the most successful Bond film to that point and held the record for another 14 years. But it was followed by ‘For Your Eyes Only,’ a film that scaled things way back with a more traditional espionage plotline and human-scale action.

“I think the producers understand that they can push the formula only so far before hitting the reboot button,” Morefield said. “If the goose is going to keep laying those golden eggs, it requires occasional care and feeding.”

The problem with Bond has always been that he’s static and unchanging, according to Chris Gore, whose filmthreat.com is one of the Internet’s most popular movie-themed sites.

“The character has always been presented as too perfect,” Gore said. “You know he’ll beat the bad guys. You know no matter the fix he’s in, he’ll get away. The character never grows or changes or learns lessons. … It’s all pretty predictable.”

The footage he has seen of Craig leads Gore to think Craig could be the best bond since Connery.

“The Roger Moore era was the worst … James Bond as camp hero. The Timothy Dalton era never really happened. Pierce Brosnan was the best-looking Bond … I doubt that anyone will ever come close to equaling Connery.

And he likes the story. “It’s about what drove him to become a Double-0 agent.

“And that’s a story we’ve never seen before.”

By ROBERT W. BUTLER